The article begins by mentioning - right out there in the open - the frequent summer spraying of DDT, which (along with some of its predecessor pesticides that were in use from before the turn of the century) have been shown to closely coincide with the rise in cases of poliomyelitis - the condition. Before describing and naming viruses was possible, poliomyelitis - the condition - was described as a (rare) paralysing complication of a common enteric infection (a tummy bug). For a complication to occur, the infectious disease may be a starting point, but other factors have to co-occur.
In this case, something has to remove the normal barriers which prevent infectious agents in the gut from entering the brain tissue (of which the spinal cord is an integral part).
Although there were researchers looking closely into the question of what might be making these normal barriers more permeable to infectious enteric agents, once a vaccine was being developed, all of this research was either defunded or "shadow-banned" from media coverage. Instead, a specific enteric virus (one of the many) was given the name "poliovirus" and everything was geared towards waging a war against this virus, which was now seen as the sole cause of the paralysis complication.
Now, there were some published papers raising awkward questions - frex, how it could be that when the victims of a 1958 outbreak of paralysis as a complication of an enteric infection were sampled with the new virus-detection tests, only 50% or so could be confirmed to have contracted THE poliovirus - the infectious agent - still the war against THE poliovirus continued to be waged.
Some people believe that it was the subsequent bans on DDT (for which much credit is given to Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring") that did more to stop the epidemic of polio than the vaccines which received the credit.
Re: The Man In The Iron Lung
The article begins by mentioning - right out there in the open - the frequent summer spraying of DDT, which (along with some of its predecessor pesticides that were in use from before the turn of the century) have been shown to closely coincide with the rise in cases of poliomyelitis - the condition. Before describing and naming viruses was possible, poliomyelitis - the condition - was described as a (rare) paralysing complication of a common enteric infection (a tummy bug). For a complication to occur, the infectious disease may be a starting point, but other factors have to co-occur.
In this case, something has to remove the normal barriers which prevent infectious agents in the gut from entering the brain tissue (of which the spinal cord is an integral part).
Although there were researchers looking closely into the question of what might be making these normal barriers more permeable to infectious enteric agents, once a vaccine was being developed, all of this research was either defunded or "shadow-banned" from media coverage. Instead, a specific enteric virus (one of the many) was given the name "poliovirus" and everything was geared towards waging a war against this virus, which was now seen as the sole cause of the paralysis complication.
Now, there were some published papers raising awkward questions - frex, how it could be that when the victims of a 1958 outbreak of paralysis as a complication of an enteric infection were sampled with the new virus-detection tests, only 50% or so could be confirmed to have contracted THE poliovirus - the infectious agent - still the war against THE poliovirus continued to be waged.
Some people believe that it was the subsequent bans on DDT (for which much credit is given to Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring") that did more to stop the epidemic of polio than the vaccines which received the credit.